


in years to come

by rainingover



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Best Friends, M/M, New Year's Eve, New Year's Kiss, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Partying, Pining, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 09:23:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17241677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainingover/pseuds/rainingover
Summary: Minhyuk can’t remember whose party they’re at, but he knows he's enjoying himself because he’s drunker than he has been in a long time, and he feels good with it. Plus, he still has his phone and his wallet in his back pocket and, most importantly of all, Kihyun is here.(or, Five new year's eves Minhyuk spends being Kihyun's best friend)





	in years to come

**Author's Note:**

> happy new year darlings.

**2018.**

 

Minhyuk can’t remember whose party they’re at, but he knows he's enjoying himself because he’s drunker than he has been in a long time, and he feels good with it. Plus, he still has his phone and his wallet in his back pocket and, most importantly of all, Kihyun is here.

Kihyun, who is laughing at something across the room, Kihyun in a black shirt and black jeans and his hair slicked back in that new style he’s wearing. Kihyun who is kind and considerate and handsome. Minhyuk may be drunk, or maybe he’s very drunk. Hell, he’ll probably have a headache tomorrow, but he’s happy right now, because he has his phone and his wallet and his Kihyun. This is _exactly_ how he wants his new year to begin.

Kihyun spots him amongst the crowds a few minutes later, appearing at his side with a smile that Minhyuk could never get bored of seeing. “Have you decided who you are kissing at midnight?” He asks. His glass is full, Minhyuk notes. Minhyuk can’t even remember where he’s put his own glass.

“No.” Minhyuk rests his head on Kihyun’s shoulder and takes Kihyun’s glass from his hand. He takes a sip and hands it back. “What about you?”

“Well, courtesy says I should kiss my boyfriend at midnight, so I don’t get to decide otherwise.” He pauses. “Not that, you know, I’d want to choose otherwise.”

“Oh, yeah.” Minhyuk watches the party continue around them with bleary eyes. Everything looks magical from this angle, a sideways world of debauchery that only New Year’s Eve parties seem to conjure up. “I forgot.”

“About courtesy?” There’s amusement in Kihyun’s voice.

Minhyuk says, “About you having a boyfriend,” and something between them shifts.  

“I’ll push someone hot your way at five to twelve, okay?” Kihyun says, and he nudges Minhyuk with his arm until Minhyuk has remembered how to hold up his own head. “Go and enjoy yourself.”

“Thank you.” Minhyuk tries out his biggest smile, looks at Kihyun and tries not to wobble on his feet as he steps away from his constant. “You’re the best,” he says, and he means it so much.

“That’s what friends are for,” Kihyun says. His voice is airy and bright, but his eyes are sad. Worried. Minhyuk wishes he wouldn’t worry about him; he isn’t worth it, as much as he wants to be. He isn’t worthy of _Kihyun_.

The next morning Minhyuk can’t quite remember whether he kissed someone at midnight or not, but he can remember Kihyun’s face, illuminated by the moon as they’d all slipped out into the night after the party. Kihyun laughing, his breath like a cloud in the cold air. Kihyun walking hand in hand with someone else, starting his new year with another man.

And it hurts.

 

 

**2019.**

 

When Minhyuk presses the call button, he isn’t sure that Kihyun is even going to pick up the phone.

They haven’t spoken a lot in the last couple of months with Kihyun away for his semester abroad. It shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, not really. Best friends are best friends, whether they speak once a day or once a month, he knows that. Plus, Minhyuk is trying to fly solo - he’s trying to not rely on his best friend for reassurance that his paper is correctly cited, trying not to text Kihyun ten times a day with pointless selfies and photos of his failed attempts at cooking for himself, especially when Kihyun is too busy to reply.

And he can do it, if he really restrains himself and tries hard not to think of Kihyun in every waking moment. It’s just… It’s really difficult. He misses him.

He’s screwed up and he’s alone on New Years Eve, half a bottle of soju on the desk beside him, his Haikyuu! Season three rewatch marathon paused in the middle of a spike toss, and he’s calling Kihyun because he doesn’t know what else to do.

“Hey.” He can’t help but allow his heart to skip a beat when he hears Kihyun’s voice. It’s noisy in the background where Kihyun is, but he can’t be at a party yet, surely, Minhyuk thinks. It’s barely three PM in Paris. Then again, since Kihyun had gone to Europe he’d uploaded countless photos of dinner parties, of bars, and beers he’d drank with groups of pretty people on the banks of the Seine. He’s enjoying himself, like he should be.

Minhyuk wishes he weren’t such a bad best friend - jealous, and bitter, and sad–  but wishing is pointless. He’s tried it enough to know that and has accepted that he is who he is.

(In love.)

“How is it in the past?” he asks.

“Stop calling it that. It’s not the past, it’s just a different timezone.” Kihyun laughs. “Anyway, why are you wasting time - and _money_ \- calling me here? Aren’t you out? It’s almost midnight in Seoul!”

Minhyuk sighs. He plays with the lid off the soju bottle, sets it to spin on the top of the desk and watches as it falls off and rolls away under his bed. “I wish you were here, this party is boring. It’s _so_ dead.”

It’s so dead that it didn’t even begin. It’s isn’t a party at all; parties for one are just elaborate attempts to hide loneliness, and Minhyuk can’t even be bothered hiding his. He is lonely. And, yeah, he’s drunk, which doesn’t help. But Kihyun is so far away, and Kihyun functions by himself, and Kihyun doesn’t love him back, not like Minhyuk wants him to.

Minhyuk struggles to hide the sadness in his voice. “I miss you.”

And the silence is so short that it shouldn't be telling at all, but it is, because Kihyun doesn't say it back. “I’ll be back in Spring,” Kihyun says, and then he pauses on the line - a true, long, aching pause this time. “Minhyuk-ah? Please don’t spend midnight on your own.”

“Hmmm.” Minhyuk breathes in and out and regrets the call, was always going to regret the call.

“You have an hour to steal one of my best shirts to wear and get to a club,” Kihyun tells him. “Go out and have fun and kiss someone pretty at midnight.” His voice is echoey and far away. “You deserve it.”

Minhyuk says, “Happy New Year, Kihyun,” and hangs up the phone.

He doesn't leave his dorm room until his hangover has subsided the next afternoon, and when he steps outside and into the new year, it doesn't feel any different to the last three years he's spent in love with his best friend.

 

 

**2020.**

 

December is unseasonably warm. There’s no snow, just dark skies and rain, which Minhyuk trails into Kihyun’s apartment on the soles of new sneakers.

“We have to do something major this year.” Kihyun tosses a beer to Minhyuk. “We aren't in college anymore. We can't just go to another campus party or do something lame.”

Minhyuk opens his beer, putting his mouth over the top before any spills out over his white t-shirt. “Are you talking about new year?” He asks, foam on his upper lip.

“No I'm talking about Halloween.” Kihyun pulls a face. He wipes at Minhyuk’s lip with his thumb absentmindedly, and Minhyuk’s heart jumps inside his chest. “ _Yes_ , new year. It's two weeks away.”

“I thought you'd be seeing Changkyun.” Minhyuk’s confused. He’s sure they already had this conversation back in Summer and Kihyun had made it pretty clear that he’d be spending time with his boyfriend over the winter holidays. “I made other plans already.”

“Oh, of course you have, duh.” Kihyun laughs, a hollow noise that comes off as awkward. “You'll be spending new year with Hyungwon’s family, right?”

Minhyuk nods. “But I could see if-”

“No, no. Don’t change your plans on my account,” Kihyun says. He chuckles, soft, embarrassed. “It was stupid to think you’d be free.”

They finish their beers in silence, pretending to watch the television.

The thing is that Minhyuk only asked Hyungwon out to take his mind off of Kihyun’s new relationship, which he knows makes him self-absorbed and morally bankrupt, but Hyungwon is a good distraction: he likes to fuck and he likes to sleep in, and they don’t see each other when they’re busy with work, so it’s a good arrangement. Hyungwon doesn’t love him, which makes him feel less like a dick about it all, but only a little.

It isn’t love, but it’s as close to it as Minhyuk has ever felt for someone who wasn’t Kihyun. When Hyungwon invites Minhyuk to his family’s cabin for new year and Minhyuk has no reason to say no, so he doesn’t. He thinks of Kihyun and Changkyun and their six month anniversary, the way that Kihyun talks about him and the faraway look in his eye when he talks to Changkyun on the phone in front of him, and it hurts. Kihyun has had other boyfriends - four others in fact, since they met - but it has never gotten easier to stomach, only easier to pretend that Minhyuk is happy for him.

Hyungwon’s family are kind, and funny, and the two of them drink champagne and kiss on the back porch of the cabin at midnight, and Minhyuk waits until twelve nineteen AM to text Kihyun, just out of a weird kind of spite.

He breaks up with Hyungwon in January.

 

 

**2021.**

 

Kihyun goes through two more boyfriends the next year.

“Why do you keep breaking up with all of the nice boys?” His mom asks him, as Minhyuk watches the tense conversation from across Kihyun’s lounge. Minhyuk always visits when Kihyun’s parents do - Kihyun jokes that they only really visit to see Minhyuk, but he’s grateful, Minhyuk can tell.

“I just do.” Kihyun sits, legs crossed at the ankles, on the chair nearest the door.

“They’re nice boys,” his mom repeats. She doesn’t get it, and Minhyuk doesn’t either. He thinks of Kihyun’s first-date jitters before he first went out with Yoongi; how excited and nervous he seemed, like this was important to him. But they’d only seen each other a handful of times and then Kihyun had told him it wasn’t working out. Minhyuk hadn’t understood then, and he doesn’t now. His mom presses on, “They all liked you very much.”

“I know, mom.” Kihyun’s teeth are clenched. “But enough about me, hows home? Hows aunty?”

His mom talks and Kihyun pretends to listen, but Minhyuk can tell he wants the night to be over. Minhyuk catches his eye and smiles sympathetically, and Kihyun looks relieved and it makes Minhyuk be glad that he can make a difference - however small - to Kihyun’s mood.

Later, as they eat take-out from cardboard boxes with cardboard-tasting chopsticks, Minhyuk says, “Your mom has a point.”

“What?”

Kihyun is mid-mouthful, and he’s beautiful and he’s happy now, and Minhyuk doesn’t know why he’s bringing this shit up, so he just says, “Nothing. Do you want to get super wasted at an overpriced, understaffed bar on new year’s eve and spend January first hungover?”

Kihyun considers this. “Just us?”

Minhyuk shrugs. “Sure.” He smiles. “Don’t like anyone else as much as you, anyway.”

“Same.” Kihyun laughs, and Minhyuk wishes it were the same, but he doesn’t think so. He doesn’t like anyone as much as Kihyun because he don’t think he ever _could_. Who could compare?

“Hey,” Kihyun adds, as they tidy up after dinner. “It’s been years since we’ve got to spend new year together, hasn’t it? Let’s make this one special.”

Minhyuk romanticizes the event in his mind, because he can’t help himself. Because New Year’s Eve is full of opportunity that no other night holds. Because there is no one else in the world that he can imagine being with when the clock strikes midnight and the year starts over again.

Kihyun wears skintight jeans and a crisp white shirt that shows off his winter tan, and tells Minhyuk he’s _missed him_ over Christmas. “My mom wouldn’t stop lecturing me about being single,” he says.  And Minhyuk is so hopelessly in love, and so sure that this is their night, and _so_ damn nervous that he orders two drinks at a time.

At around eleven there are shots of absinthe and they’re laughing, and Kihyun is declaring this the best new years ever he’s ever had. At eleven-thirty, Kihyun is smiling and pulling him onto the dance floor, and his hand at Minhyuk’s waist feels like home

But then Minhyuk _is_ home, in his bed, and it’s ten o-clock the next morning.

Kihyun calls him about an hour later.

“I lost you on the dancefloor at about ten to twelve!” He explains, his voice far too loud for Minhyuk’s headache to comprehend. ”I found you on the balcony about quarter past and you’d been sick into a plastic potted tree.”

Minhyuk closes his eyes. “Right.”

“Still, I found someone to kiss as the bells rang.” Minhyuk can hear the sound of Kihyun’s coffee machine in the background. He wonders if Kihyun is making coffee for two.

“Oh. Good. Good for you,” he manages to say without his voice breaking. “Happy New Year,” he adds, and then he crawls back into his bed and sleeps January first away.

  


**2022.**

 

It’s funny, Minhyuk thinks, how little time actually heals an open wound. After the last new year, Minhyuk spends less time at Kihyun’s apartment. He isn’t there when Kihyun’s mom visits in the Spring. Summer in the city is a string of one night stands and air-conditioning bills. Kihyun is working in Europe when their birthdays fall. He stays on when the project extend, and before long it's been three months since he and Minhyuk have been face to face.

Sometimes Minhyuk wishes he were back in college. At least in college Kihyun was his constant. Now, he’s constantly missed.

Minhyuk knows it’s his fault, though. He’d decided on January second, after waking up with a dry mouth and a drumming in his head, that he needed distance himself from his best friend. Best friends aren’t worth much when they’re stupidly in love with you. Kihyun would be better off without him– without someone to pity on New Year.

The party he ends up at on New Years eve is at a loft apartment downtown. Hoseok and Hyunwoo are generous hosts, and there is a glass of champagne in Minhyuk’s hand before he can barely say hello and ask for a beer instead.

He drinks the champagne slowly; he’s learnt his lesson in years prior about how quickly champagne goes to his head, and he wants to see 2023 begin, even if it will be missing the one person he’d always hoped would be there every year. 

It's during beer number two, when the music is still background noise and there are still canapés left in the kitchen, that he spots him near the door. Kihyun smiles at him and it still has the same old effect on his heart: spinning it in circles inside how his chest

"You're in Geneva," he says, when Kihyun reaches his side.

"Clearly I'm not," he replies. "You should check your inbox more. I came home."

“But-- why?”

“You’re here." Kihyun nods towards Minhyuk's beer and grins. "Someone’s got to stop you from getting too drunk to enjoy yourself when the clock strikes twelve.”

Minhyuk laughs. He isn't wrong, but, still, it hurts to think of the year before. He cringes at the thought of how sure he was that he could get Kihyun to love him back. “You’re the best,” he says, and he's expecting the next line– Kihyun's usual quip, _that's what friends are for–_ he can already hear it.

“I know I am.” Kihyun smiles. "But you're pretty great too."

And with that curve-ball, something between them shifts– just a little, just a degree or two to the left, but enough for it to feel different.

“Have you decided who you are kissing at midnight?” Kihyun asks him. The party is getting louder, rowdier. It's nice.

“I’m not thinking about it this year,” Minhyuk replies. And that's the honest truth. He's spent four years hoping for something uncertain, and uncertainties should be left to chance. So, he's going to enjoy another two to three beers, maybe sneak outside for a pre-midnight smoke before he quits on new year’s day, and then, when the clock strikes twelve, he'll see what happens next. “I’ll leave it to chance.”

Four to five beers and two smokes later, he watches the party from the perimeters, head resting on the wall behind him. Kihyun at his shoulder, watching him with curious eyes.

"I was going to kiss you last year." he says.

"What?"

"Last new year, I was going to kiss you. I told you so." Kihyun looks at him. Minhyuk wonders how long he's been wanting to talk about this, and why and what it all means.

"Oh."

"And you disappeared, and spent new year with a potted plant." Kihyun raises an eyebrow. "Rude."

"I don't remember." Minhyuk isn't quite processing this. "Wait, why would you kiss me?"

"Because I wanted to. I thought you wanted to as well, but we were just never in the right place at the right time. When my mom used to quiz me about being single--" He shrugs. "I don't know. I thought, maybe..."

There's a shout from the middle of the room. "It's almost midnight!" Hoseok shouts. "Everyone, get ready!" and Minhyuk realises that he's made it to midnight with Kihyun by his side for the first time ever.

When the countdown begins, the crowd chanting along in time with the television on the wall, Kihyun is there, in person, smiling at him, and when the countdown reaches one, he's there still, letting Minhyuk kiss him, and kissing him back.

"Happy New Year," Minhyuk says, as cheers ring out around them, and Kihyun doesn't hear him, but that's alright, because he can say it again in the morning.

  
  



End file.
